1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and an information processing program product, and more particularly, to those information processing apparatus, information processing method, and information processing program product that achieve efficient image formation in an image forming device connected to a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been commercial printing companies that produce printed products at requests from customers such as a personal user or enterprise. These printing companies prepare printed products by using print data (or original copy) given by customers according to their instructions of print style, the number of copies, or delivery time, and then delivers the printed products to those customers.
Most of these printing companies use a large-scale system, such as an offset prepress and printing machine, which has been known over decades. Nowadays, however, electrophotographic printers or inkjet printers exhibit high processing speeds and high image qualities, and therefore printed matters comparable to those from the offset prepress printing machine can be output and delivered in a short time by using those recent printers. In particular, business styles of commercial printing specializing in a small volume of printing or short-time delivery, which are called “Copy Service”, “Printing Service”, or “Print On Demand (POD) Center”, are now seen in the market.
When asking for a print service of such printing business, a user provides a printing company with an original paper copy or an electronic medium (FD, MO, CD-ROM, etc.) having recorded original print data. Furthermore, the user mails or brings directly to the company, a print in structions form (purchase order form) in which the number of copies to be printed, a type of binding required, and a deadline for delivery are described.
On the other hand, an Internet-or Intranet-based online print ordering system is already put into practical use. For example, in “DotDoc. Web” released by Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., a user gains access from a computer to the homepage of a printing company, and inputs necessary data, such as orderer information (delivery point and the like), print style, or the number of copies, in a printing request page (form). Then, the user sends the input data together with an original document file thereby to complete a print order.
The printing company, upon receipt of the printing request from the user, prepares a print instructions form and schedules printing processing. Then, according to the planned schedule, printing and binding operations are performed by a printer which is connected to an operation management computer, and finally printed products are delivered to the customer.
As described above, a printing company performing printing processing requested by users needs to finish printing with stable quality certainly before a specified deadline for delivery. Furthermore, at a large printing center, multiple operators are required to use a great variety of printers and operating computers for parallel handling of many printing requests (orders). Therefore, it is necessary to utilize resources, such as human (operator) and machinery, as efficiently as possible.
A more concrete task of printing companies to ensure stable quality of printed products is to establish a reasonable print schedule in consideration of operating conditions of printers and to proceed with printing processes according to this schedule. A printer, which performs actual printing processing, is involved in many factors affecting the print quality, such as paper curling resulting from heat applied by a fuser or photoconductor drum, or color changes during the printing process. Printing companies must prevent these factors of deteriorating the print quality, and prepare printed products desired by users certainly before the delivery date. Furthermore, it is desirable to flexibly cope with the case where the printing schedule must absolutely be modified because of an urgent printing order.
One of approaches for maintaining the print quality to achieve the above described task is to equip a printer with a function by which the printer itself carries out calibration processing automatically upon detection that a certain period of time elapses or that a designated number of copies are printed. Note here that the calibration processing may be done when environmental changes (temperature or humidity changes) are detected at the position where the printer is placed.
Furthermore, there are proposals for a printer management system by which maintenance operations can easily be performed by handling a maintenance request as a print job. According to one of those proposals, for example, nozzle cleaning processing is executed as a utility function of the printer driver for an inkjet printer. In the event of occurrence-of failure in a printer during processing usual print data, appropriate maintenance notice is issued from this printer management system, and a maintenance request is sent from the printer management system to the printer in the same manner as in the case of a usual print job. All the user needs to do is to give his/her desired job instruction to one printer management system, and thereby both usual printing and maintenance operations can be performed (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-327855 (1999)).
The foregoing conventional technology ensures printed image quality and tint but does not ensure the quality of printed products including recording paper quality. In particular, when color printing orders are received successively, printing processing loads are concentrated on a printer, and a temporal operational halt for the automatic calibration processing does not offer sufficient cooling down effect. Moreover, the prevention of unforeseen failure caused by overheat can scarcely be expected. Furthermore, the conventional technology does not consider whether the time required both for stabilizing processing of the printer and for printing processing based on print jobs is reserved before a user's designated delivery date comes. Furthermore, the conventional system such as the above printer management system can handle a maintenance request in the same manner as in the case of print jobs, but does not automatically determine whether the stabilizing processing is necessary or not depending on a characteristic of each print job. Therefore, the execution of the stabilizing processing inevitably relies upon an operator's decision, and thus the system efficiency is not improved disadvantageously.